OIA Boys Volleyball
Chargers sweep Golden Hawks to claim third straight league title


Michael Lasquero | ScoringLive
April 28, 2022, 1:09am

  

Wed, Apr 27, 2022 @ Radford [ 5:00 pm ]

Nanakuli

0

Pearl City

3

FINAL  1   2   3   4   5      
NANA (11-4) 21 18 19 - - 0
PC (14-2) 25 25 25 - - 3
Kill: M. Kekaula Van Gieson (NANA) 13 kills
Blk: M. Kekaula Van Gieson (NANA) 3 blk
Ast: C. Ronquilio (PC) 27 ast


What a difference five weeks make.

Pearl City avenged an early regular season loss to Nanakuli to sweep the Golden Hawks, 25-21, 25-18, 25-19, in the OIA Division II championship match at Radford's Jm Alegre Gymnasium Wednesday night.

Since dropping a four-set match to Nanakuli on March 23, the Chargers (11-2) have racked up nine straight wins en route to their 13th overall league crown. Pearl City also won the previous two D2 titles prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"It's a full circle story," said libero Tylus Williams, who is one of three seniors that played in the 2019 championship match as freshmen. "From day one we knew what we wanted. It took a lot of teamwork, a lot of effort, a lot of team pride for us to pull together and pull off this win."

The Chargers have come a long way since their regular season loss to the Golden Hawks. When they last met, Pearl City was tinkering with its lineup and had things to clean up.

Pearl City's biggest improvement in the rematch came at the service line, where it tallied nine aces as the Chargers constantly got Nanakuli (10-2) out of system. Middle Tiandrew Taimanao led the way with three aces and Williams, Keahi Kaneakua and Christian Ronquilio chipped in two apiece.

"We kind of took this philosophy where when you go back to serve, you got on job, and that's to get the ball in the court," said Pearl City coach Sean Chang. "As long as we can do that, we'll be just fine."

Another change since the regular season meeting is that the Chargers settled into a 5-1 offense with Ronquilio (27 assists) at the controls, which in turned allowed Kaneakua (team-high 12 kills) to focus on being an outside hitter.

"I will say we struggled with it a bit, but over the season and as time progressed, that kind of started to click for us," Williams said of the 5-1 offense.

Fati Seei-Tofi, another senior who played on the 2019 squad, was another key cog in the win with 11 kills, which included match point. Taimanao led the blocking with three block assists and he also had six kills, with two of them clinching the first and second sets. Ethen Long added three more kills as the second middle hitter and Sile Sataraka added two more off the bench to round out the Pearl City attack.

"Everyone on this team wanted to win and I think that's what pushed us," Williams said.

Williams (11 digs) and defensive specialist Tyson Keaunui (six digs), the third senior that played in the 2019 championship match, stabilized the back row and the Chargers' passing.

"During the past couple of weeks and practices leading up to this game, we really focused on defense, that first touch, that free ball passing," said Williams.

"I think that's what really helped us tonight was doubling down on our defense, doubling down on those easy to return points. I think doing that the past couple of days really helped us."

Makoa Kekaula Van Gieson led the Golden Hawks in the loss with team-highs in three different categories. He finished with a match-high 13 kills, three total blocks and eight digs.


Reach Michael Lasquero at [email protected].




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